Ho-Hum Vote Wins

Beside Les Halles, the popular bistro Chez
Clovis.

Warning: Transport Strikes

Paris:- Sunday, 24. September 2000:- Starting
tomorrow, public transport will be affected by labor
actions in Paris and the Ile-de-France area. This is the
lead-up to a more general transport strike in Paris on
Tuesday, affecting both the métro and buses.

Discussions with the RATP began last Friday, and the
expected disruptions on Tuesday are not expected to be as
'total' as originally predicted. Two unions - the CFDT and
CFTC - might have lifted their strike warnings, while the
CGT and FO are said to be maintaining theirs. In Paris,
expect a 50% métro service.

SNCF operations on Thursday are expected to be hard-hit
because management is being stiffer with its unions. In the
Paris area, several RER lines, as well as long-distance
lines will be affected. Here, the big unions are in
alignment, and the smaller SUD-Rail even has issued an
unlimited strike warning.

For good measure, the CGT has also called for a big
demonstration on Thursday, to protest against the new
agreement between employers and unions, concerning
unemployment benefits.

France Wins Its Sunday
Referendum

Today the French voted massively in favor of reducing
the country's presidential term from a constitutional seven
years to five.

Tonight's TV-news at 20:00 was deprogrammed to another
time or dropped entirely in favor of an all-party
discussion about why the French did not vote 'en
masse.'

While no less than 69.4 percent of registered voters
stayed away from polling stations,
those who took the small effort to go to their local voting
centres were 73.1 percent in favor of the constitutional
change.

This change was proposed by former president
Valéry Giscard d'Estaing on 10. May. National
deputies and senators endorsed the change, but it was up to
President Chirac to decide how it was to be
accomplished.

He had the choice of calling a constitutional congress -
composed of deputies and senators, or having a national
referendum; to let the issue be decided by universal
suffrage.

In effect, the willingness of the assembly and the
senate had already decided the outcome - so voters sensed a
certain futility in calling for referendum.

Also the national vote seemed somewhat frivolous, with
the President - of the current minority party - and the
Prime Minister - of the
current majority party - both being in favor of the
measure.

The seven-year presidential term has been around in
France since 1873, and the election of the President has
been conducted by universal suffrage since 1962.

When this was proposed, and adopted by a referendum, it
was President Charles De Gaulle who actively campaigned for
it - even though he was risking his own mandate.

For today's election, today's politicians have been
responsible for the lack of public interest. Some party
leaders even actively supported abstentionism - some with
the argument that the question to be decided wasn't
sufficiently important.

It's like, 'everybody talks about democracy, but nobody
does anything about it.' During the three-week 'official'
campaign period, nobody could be heard to say what might be
the result of a reduced presidential term.

There were vague mentions of France acquiring a
'presidential system' or even going further to suggest that
the referendum would be the first step towards a 6th
Republic.

Politicians here are uncomfortable with what is called
'cohabitation,' which is the status when the country's
president is head of one party and the Prime Minister leads
another party - which happens to enjoy a majority of
elected members.

I think this is what is meant by the phrase
'presidential system.' Many politicians in France think it
very unnatural; even though it is perfectly
constitutional.

Maybe what is wrong with it is that it functions, as it
has been doing more or less harmoniously for the past
several years.

In order to be the majority party, the Socialists have
allied themselves with the Communists and 'Les Verts' - the
Greens - with members of these parties holding cabinet
positions, and active ones at that.

Meanwhile, the centre-right parties - including the
President's RPR - are still in considerable disarray; which
means they haven't been able to sustain the kind of
compromises that the Socialists have obtained.

At the moment, in France, all right-wing parties are
fragile. Alliances formed today fall apart tomorrow; and
dissidents quit, to form their own ever-smaller
parties.

Reducing the presidential term from five to seven years
may help the right-wing parties to focus on their primary
objective - to control both the presidency and the assembly
- but the result of today's balloting is no guarantee of
this.

Straw-Vote

Even if most voters did not bother casting ballots
today, polls indicated a 79 percent approval rating for the
reduction of the Presidential term. This was largely
vindicated by the actual voting results.

Polls also predicted a low turn-out correctly,
confirming my headline of last week - of a self-fulfilling
prophecy. However, I want no credit for this.

On Saturday, before the vote, Le Parisien's page-two
lead headline pronounced, 'Voters Have Chosen To Abstain.'
After the vote, in an editorial Le Parisien blamed
everybody but itself for the turnout
fiasco.

Straw-Campaign

While a large number of prosecutors and judges are
currently dealing with a morass of 'dirty' campaign funds'
cases - one result of their efforts may have been reflected
in the lack-luster political campaign for the
referendum. 'Dirty' money may have disappeared.

By law, in France, political ads on TV are strictly
controlled. For this referendum, their time-slot was in the
five minutes preceding the commercials that precede the
national TV-news each evening at 20:00.

I kept forgetting this and therefore managed to see no
referendum advertising on TV at all. In any case, the ads
ceased on Friday - to allow for the 48 hours before the
balloting 'no-ads' rule.

But I am on the streets where the posters are. Each
polling station has its own standardized set of poster
panels, and these are set out near the polling stations -
three weeks before an election.

France has a great many political parties, and each is
supposed to get one panel-space. No billboards, no electric
signs, no blimps flying overhead are allowed.

I think lowly party minions are charged with the
posters' texts and graphics, because not one of them would
ever be appointed Metropole's 'Poster of the Week.'

On this page are six out of about ten posters I saw.
I don't recall seeing any posters for the Communist party;
and posters for far-left parties were almost all mutilated,
as were a few of the far-right's posters.

'Les Verts' went a step beyond the referendum by
suggesting the vote should be for a '6th Republic.' The
hunters - no friends of 'Les Verts' - are against anything
newer than the monarchy, and the recent rise in gas prices
has its malcontents: "Tax on caviar, 5.5%: tax on gas, 235
%!"

Well yes, try seeing how well your car runs on a tankful
of caviar, which probably costs more than 3000 francs a
kilo.

'No Cars' Day' Flops In Paris

That I was largely unaware of 'no-cars' day on Friday in
Paris does not mean that I am blind or that it was a total
flop. Montmartre blocked its entries, more or less
completely, and caused huge traffic jams all around
itself.

Saturday's Le Parisien has a photo of the Rue de Rennes,
showing a lone roller-skater in the foreground, and a herd
of buses at the next intersection. Apparently Paris
semi-closed only four major streets.

In France, outside of Paris, 69 cities and towns took
part in the Europe-wide 'no-cars' day, which involved 748
urban areas in all.

Halfway through the day, Marseille had to abandon its
'no-cars' day because its traffic jams increased to such
proportions that it nearly strangled on them.

This may may have been partly on account of the deluge
of monsoon-like rain and 200 kph gusts followed by massive
flooding that turned Marseille into a sea of water and mud
on Tuesday.

Web Life In France:

Flashy Kid's Stuff

Lots of graphics, lots of color; discoveries and some
history, Clicksouris -
meaning 'click-mouse' - features interactivity for kids and
a chance to learn some French while having fun - and games.
This Web site probably requires whatever is needed to see
'Flash' effects. If you haven't got it and your kids
complain, you didn't read this here.

The Season of
the Grape

If you are an active fan of the red, white and
rosé juices, you can follow their seasonal progress
from the vine to the part where the stout Italian ladies
hold their skirts up high and stomp raisins into mush in
giant vats.

Even if this pleasant idea is no more than a fiction,
the Web site
Wine Today watches over this throughout the northern
hemisphere, but the link included here should give you the
section focusing on France.

Present and Past Olympic
Games

The Olympic
Museum has the history in text, photos and video of the
Olympics, plus all the latest developments - including, I
suppose - ample presence of all the logos and stadium
slogans that add so much to the visual aspects of the
games.

In case you are wondering what the Olympics used to look
like, the Olympic Television
Archive Bureau has a Web site with old films, plus new
films showing all the logos and stadium slogans in
color.

The 'Official' Weather, One More Time

Météo France gets another run this week on
account of delivering good weather last Thursday and Friday
by surprise. This is the official source for France's
TV-weather people. If you don't get French TV where you
are, you can get the weather from where they get it.
Because it is 'official' - meaning: as true as possible -
don't expect forecasts to exceed 24
hours.